I MISS MY DOG

Back in the 90s, I lived in two of the bays of an old abandoned fire house, where the town fire trucks had been kept.

Playing with My Buddies

There was a big parking lot out front. At the beginnings of our daily walks out into the desert, my dog IO (pron. Ee-oh) would come out into the lot and run big circles around me, round and round, with a huge shit-eating grin on her face.

Before that, we lived in the Winch House south of town.

It was essentially a big empty square block built of bricks. When the coal company left the town, they took the winch with them, leaving about a 6’x8′ pit right in the middle of the (brick!) floor, where the winch used to be, about 3′ deep.

Io would jump in there, crouch down and hide. I’d call “Io! Io! Where arrrrrre youuuu?”

She’d wait a few seconds, and then she’d leap straight up and out and come flying into my arms. I swear I could hear her cracking up as she did so.

I also had a rebellious grey kitty that an owl ate, and loads of mice in the walls. This was during the time when people in New Mexico were all freaked out about the Hanta virus, which was supposedly carried by mice.

The old firehouse bays had no flooring, so I went into town and purloined a truck load of pallets from a few of the grocery stores, laid them down on the packed coal dust, and covered them with plywood.

There was no running water or bathroom, except the outhouse in the back parking lot. I drove my old Chevy van into town once a week to fill my five 55-gallon drums with water. I hauled water from them by hand to my little veggie garden, and I had a small plastic tank I suspended over my sink inside to wash, cook and clean with.

I had to scratch my way through the outer wall to create two small windows, which I filled in with discarded windows from the dump. It’s amazing how much light two 12″ square windows will bring into a room, changing the ambience from dank and dark to a softer, livable grey.

I’ve always thought of our animal friends as Other Beings in fur suits who choose the humans they wish to live with. Some of them have really hard lives. Some cushy. But I believe that each one has a purpose — to ground love into the house, to serve to brunt the forces of fights between unhappy people, to be friends for kids who need love — so many ways they give of themselves to us.

People think these special Beings don’t understand what we say to them, or talk about to others in front of them, but I’m here to tell you, I know they do. They just keep it a close secret.

During times I was hooked by depression, crying disconsolate up in my bed, she’d come lay her head on the mattress, her big luminous brown eyes gazing into mine. Until I’d pat the bed, when she’d leap up and curl herself into my arms. Having her love and actual physical warmth right next to my heart was such deep comfort.

The whole ten years I spent living in New Mexico was one of the worst periods of my life — I know I wouldn’t have survived without her.

She was the best friend I’ve ever had.

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